POLL? What level of FORMAL musical education do you have?

[88persuader]

I don't know how to start a poll here. :-( I started one on the TalkBass forum that I think is interesting so I thought it might be interesting to bring here. What level of formal musical education do you have? The poll answers were, self taught, less then a year of lessons, many years of lessons and college musical education/degree. The poll is NEW but so far the majority of people who have answered are self taught! What about YOU? :-)
For me ... I've taken minimal lessons on drums and piano, both when I was younger. On bass guitar, regular guitar and Chapman Stick I'm self taught. My reading skills are low but I have no problem following the REAL BOOK and often gig with very educated musicians. In regard to FORMAL musical education I fall into the less then a year catergory. Althought I've been a musician my entire life, started gigging at 13 YO and have been gigging ever since playing several different instruments. I'm now 50YO. The only instrument I mentioned I've yet to gig with is the Chapman Stick ... but i'll be taking that on a gig soon. ......... So ... What's YOUR story? :-)

[fmm]

3 years of cello lessons (2 years of Suzuki and a year of useful instruction), 1 lesson on string bass.  That's it.

[keith_h]

I learned everything I know from my folks old Mantovani records. LOL
 
2 to 3 years of guitar lessons and about the same for bass lessons during middle and high school.  
 
Keith

[lowlife]

6 months of classical piano training when I was 6 years old.  That's it.

[olieoliver]

33 years of on the job training. Absolutely no formal training at all.  
My dad used to say that I attended the Sam Houston Institue of Technology. Who's mascot is a Bll of cousre.
 
Olie

[haddimudd]

I think I was 11 when I started playing the Clarinet in our small town brass orchestra for two years or so. Originally I wanted to learn the saxophone, but they had no saxophones in that orchestra.
 
Half hearted classical piano lessons for three years along the age of 15. I would have rather learned modern piano/jazz but my piano teacher was a bit overstrained with that assignement and finally my piano ambitions dried out when I...
 
...joined with two other friends to set up a band. One of my friends on drums (taking lessons) and the other on guitar (self taught). I tried to get somewhere with my little clarinet knowledge, also fiddling with other stuff like blues harp or shakers, but eventually it was clear that the one instrument missing was the bass.  
 
So I started playing bass. At the beginning I played on the low strings of a borrowed strat copy (the higher strings were broken anyways), later on a borrowed Fender jazz copy. Finally it felt so good that I sold my clarinet and bought my own Squier Jazz bass. My guitar friend introduced me to the music of some bass greats from that time like Jaco Patorius, Percy Jones, Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Mark King. They remained my major influences on bass to this day. I learned more from them than from any music teacher before. Still I guess that counts for self-taught.
 
Today I wish I've had a real teacher for some of the real basic stuff. On the other hand I believe my style today is my own style rather than it probably would have become by playing what the teacher says.  
 
I still like to gather any knowledge I can get from anywhere about everything and every instrument. A couple of years ago, eventually, I picked up the saxophone. Currently I try to work myself back into the piano learning process. I wish I had a good teacher at hand for that - and enough time of course.

[flaxattack]

i started on upright bass when i was 10 via ps225 in bklyn ny. after moving i picked it up again at age 13 via public school again. at 16 i took bass lessons for 3 months and continued playing upright through high school
after graduation i took the grateful dead course in advanced joint smoking and passed the dark star test with a score of 420
my ear is always on the bass via duke ellington cds, miles davis and assorted rock impresarios

[811952]

Cello in grades 5 through 7, then upright bass for another 6 or 7 years or so.  All of that was pretty much me just struggling to keep up with the rest of the orchestra (with tips from my older brother) until college when I took weekly lessons on upright.  Also some Baritone and a little Saxophone in high school.
 
Starting at around 8th grade (I think) I started playing my brother's Hofner and trying my hardest to duplicate everything he did (and never ever succeeding!).  No lessons on electric, but lots of listening to ELP, YES and Rush, then ultimately playing lots of that wonderful music with musicians of like age and mind.
 
By my senior year in high school, I was subbing on bass with the jazz and pep bands of a *competing* school (one that had an awesome music program), and was being introduced to jazz as something that wasn't just for old farts.  Walt Anslinger at Terre Haute South High School was very good at opening closed little minds to new old things.  Judy Grimes at the Indiana State University Laboratory School (another opportunity I weasled my way into) was good at goading us to do things that we knew were impossible, and then doing even more.  She actually had a 3rd grade band that played college charts well, but I digress..
 
When I briefly attended college, I serendipitously played in a small combo that was run by Robert Chappell, a percussionist who had worked with Gary Burton and who embraced all things new and different.  I would have to credit him with opening my mind to true informed-experimentation and gave me some of the tools to begin to appreciate the genius of works by groups from King Crimson to Chick Corea to Weather Report and others of the electric-jazz genre(s).  What I did not get from him or that period was much of an appreciation for acoustic jazz, and that is something I continue to wrestle with.
 
I lived in Nashville for awhile, and pretty much didn't have anything to learn from the bass players to which I was exposed, but I did share an apartment (and some musical commitments) with guitarist J.T. Corenflos.  We spent most evenings (when we weren't gigging) sitting at his kitchen table, just jamming into my boom-box for literally hours.  He would try new ideas and changes, and I would try in particularly abysmal fashion to keep up.  He was hard-core into Be-Bop, we just didn't realize that's what it was!
 
I lived in Los Angeles for about a year, and in between the light load of session work and heavier load of rent-paying courier work I would take my bass into Musician's Institute on Hollywood Boulevard and sit-in on classes.  That lasted months until during one master class Tim Bogert asked about our recital dates or something similarly mundane and I told him I wasn't even enrolled...    
 
I think that could be considered the last hurrah for my formal schooling.  Now I'm enrolled with Olie and take my classes mostly on the Indiana/Illinois/Ohio campus..  
 
My younger brother, Pete, and his wife, Shannon, are music educators and pro-players in the Toledo/Detroit area.  Visits to them for gigging and pleasure also carry an element of instruction.  They know more than I could ever hope to fit in my fat head, but have a gift of sharing just the right amount at the right time to get some of it to sink in..
 
John
 
Edited to add:  I have gigged on Chapman Stick, guitar and organ (no solos!)..
 
 
(Message edited by 811952 on August 24, 2007)

[olieoliver]

I also on occasion attend the ?Chop Shop?.  (Hear a cool chop and go home and figure it out).
 
Our Dallas gatherings are great places for this. Heh Heh
 
 
Olie

[grateful]

Other than being shown the fingerings of a few open chords in my very early (playing) days and the grateful dead course Flax mentioned above, I'm completely self-taught, mostly from listening to Garcia (so basically none!).
 
Mark

[jet_powers]

Two years of piano at 6 years of age followed by 5 years of classical violin. Then I discovered rock 'n roll, got a guitar and then a bass three years later. All the lessons went out the window....
 
JP

[seanhinkle]

11 years of percussion lessons, orchastra, and percussion ensemble at the Flint Institute of music. The percussion ensemble there was one of the top in the nation and I was part of that for about 6 years. Then I picked up bass and never looked back. Also thought I was majoring in music in college so took 2 years of music classes at U of M, but then realized thats not what I really wanted to do. Shoot....

[laytonco]

6 months of guitar lessons. 32 years of hard knocks.

[alembic_doctor]

6 years formal training on the trombone.  (feel free to insert your own jokes here)
 
2 years formal training on String Bass.
 
My dad taught me how to translate what I learned on the upright to the electric.  His electric.  1976 Alembic Series I Extra Long Scale.  I literally had to push the body away from me just to reach the first fret on this thing.  
 
Picked up guitar a year later.  Started playing drums about 5 years ago.  No formal training on either.
 
I'd love to make the time to formally trained on a Hammond B3 though

[hankster]

Piano to grade 4, 7 years of classical guitar lessons, 4 years of upright bass lessons before university, two years of a bachelor of music degree, a year of arranging study at the Dick Grove school.